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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/23352664">maybe paper is paper</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/lazyfish/pseuds/lazyfish'>lazyfish</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Multi, Post canon</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-03-28</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-03-28</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-01 10:01:41</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,025</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/23352664</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/lazyfish/pseuds/lazyfish</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Daisy goes back to the place she was born.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Leo Fitz/Jemma Simmons/Skye | Daisy Johnson</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>10</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>48</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>MCU RarePairs Bingo 2019</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>maybe paper is paper</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><ul class="associations">
      <li>For <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/Florchis/gifts">Florchis</a>.</li>



    </ul></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“So,” Daisy says when she reaches the top of the hill. “This is the place I was born.”</p><p>There isn’t a village there, not anymore - just rolling green hills, rubble overtaken by moss, and a whole lot of ghosts.</p><p>She understands why no one ever rebuilt, but it’s strange nonetheless to see the place she started her life (the place she doesn’t <em>remember</em> starting her life) looking like it could’ve been abandoned for a century.</p><p>“Are you alright?” Jemma asks softly. She’s obviously studying Daisy, but Daisy doesn’t mind her girlfriend’s tendency to overanalyze.</p><p>“I think so,” she answers, because it’s the only truth she has.</p><p>“Take as long as you need,” Fitz whispers.</p><p>Daisy understands the whisper, too. There’s something in the air, a heaviness of sorts. Maybe that’s just because how aware all of them are of how many people died here. </p><p>She starts down the hill, and Fitz and Jemma follow her. Daisy doesn’t want to get too close - she’s afraid of what she’ll see - but it felt strange to survey the remains of the village from above; like a conquering instead of a homecoming.</p><p>A few hundred feet later, she stops. The ground is still sloped downwards, but not at nearly as dramatic a grade. If she gets any closer she’ll start being able to touch the crumbled walls of abandoned buildings, and Daisy doesn’t want that.</p><p>“I’ve been thinking,” she says, not looking at either Fitz or Jemma, “that maybe it’s time for us to move on from S.H.I.E.L.D.”</p><p>And she’s been thinking it for a while; they’ve been through a lot with their team, a fair part of it not good. They’ve lost friends, they’ve lost time, they’ve lost pieces of themselves. Daisy’s not sure what else she has to lose, but what terrifies her is knowing whatever S.H.I.E.L.D. asks of her, she’ll give. The only way to keep herself from ever having to rip her heart out of her chest is to make sure there’s no one left to want it.</p><p>No one who would ask her for it, at least. Fitz and Jemma don’t have to ask for her love, because they have it. Neither do her friends; they know they have Daisy, they know she’s loyal almost to a fault. They know, but S.H.I.E.L.D. lacks sentience. It doesn’t know enough, but it knows too much, too.</p><p>Being here, at her childhood home, is what gives her the courage to actually put the words out in the air. She loves S.H.I.E.L.D., but this ghost town is proof of all the ways it can fail - all it’s taken from her.</p><p>Jemma leans into her, pressing their shoulders together. “It was inevitable, really,” she says.</p><p>“Leaving?”</p><p>“I think so,” Jemma answers. </p><p>They both turn to look at Fitz. He shrugs. </p><p>“You have a plan, right?” Daisy asks Jemma. Jemma always has a plan. </p><p>“I’ve thought about it,” she says vaguely. “I didn’t think it would happen so soon.”</p><p>Daisy raises her eyebrows, silently requesting an explanation.</p><p>“I thought we’d all be ready to leave once we were married, maybe if we started talking about kids.”</p><p>“You want to get married?” Daisy asks carefully.</p><p>“I assumed we would,” Jemma says nonchalantly, like she’s <em>not</em> talking about something which would very obviously trigger Daisy’s commitment issues. She just keeps holding onto Daisy’s hand.</p><p>“We were going to talk about it more,” Fitz adds. “We know… it’s not something you’d do lightly.”</p><p>Daisy nods slowly. She has commitment issues, but Fitz does, too - of a different kind. The <em>kids</em> part of Jemma’s statement is more where he’ll end up freaking out, since his dad did a number on him. Daisy, of course, wasn’t going to be mother extraordinaire, but at least she had May and Coulson to teach her a little bit about what decent parenting looked like.</p><p>“Okay.”</p><p>She doesn’t know what else to say, really. This whole conversation had the potential to explode in her face - what if Fitz and Jemma hadn’t wanted to leave? - but instead it feels anticlimactic. They’re talking about things like marriage and the future like it’s a given, and it’s… strange.</p><p>Daisy’s never had a guaranteed future before. Even now, it feels just out of her reach.</p><p>She sits herself in the grass at the base of the hill, and her partners quietly sit down next to her. Jemma keeps leaning in, crowding close. Fitz is keeping his distance more, and it’s oddly comforting to know someone else isn’t quite sure of things. It panics Daisy, just a little, when Fitz and Jemma seem to have everything figured out and she’s left behind.</p><p>Time passes, and the afternoon sun begins to fade. Daisy knows they should get going soon - it’d been quite a hike to get here, since the village is decrepit and off the beaten path - but she doesn’t want to move. She keeps waiting for something to happen, something big.</p><p>This is the place she was born, and Daisy’s not sure she’ll ever come back here again. It’s been good to see this place, good to have closure, but she has no reason to come back anymore.</p><p>Unless she wants to show her children? That’s a weird thought, one she needs to turn around in her head a while more before making a decision.</p><p>Fitz and Jemma don’t rush her, though. They don’t comment on the late hour or the setting sun or the growing cold. Eventually Fitz scoots closer to her so the three of them can all share body heat, and they all put their hands in Daisy’s lap so they can be linked together in one mess of fingers and palms.</p><p>“We should go home,” Daisy says eventually, when she can’t stare at what used to be her home any longer.</p><p>She’ll go home with the people she loves, and things will change. They’ll probably leave S.H.I.E.L.D., they’ll probably get married, and from there, Daisy doesn’t know.</p><p>Oddly enough, that doesn’t bother her at all.</p>
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